This event celebrates the publication of Dr Flora Dunster’s Hurled Towards the Future: Lesbian Photography and Queer Imagination in 1980s London (Paul Mellon Centre 2026).
Hurled Towards the Future is the first art-historical account of photography from London’s lesbian sex-radical scene. It explores how lesbian photographers in late 1980s and early 1990s London worked within a climate of resistance and possibility to imagine - and create - a queer future. Focusing on the work of Tessa Boffin and Del LaGrace Volcano, this book argues that, through their photography, these artists made a critical contribution to the reclamation of 'queer' as both a political identification and an aesthetic practice.
Following a lecture, Flora will be joined in conversation by Dr Laura Guy.
This event is organised by Dr Catherine Grant, Reader and Vice-Dean for Education, Courtauld Institute of Art.
Hurled Towards the Future: Lesbian Photography and Queer Imagination in 1980s London
Dr Flora Dunster
15 October 2026, 1800-1930
Free, Vernon Square Campus, Lecture Theatre 2
Details and register here
